Heart of Thorns Beta Weekend Event 1 Thoughts: The Chronomancer

These are my general thoughts of the Mesmer elite specialization: the Chronomancer. I was able to try out this elite specialization for the first time ever in the first beta weekend event for Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns! So without further ado, let’s jump right into it.

Shield

I have to say, the shield skills for Chronomancer are quite entertaining to use. The shield promotes seeing into the future per say. You can either block an attack with Echo of Memory/Deja Vu (Skill 4) or daze with Tides of Time (Skill 5). Clone upkeep using shield requires you to block successfully and the pay off is worth it. The clones you get for blocking grant Alacrity which speeds up skill recharge while Tides of Time grants you quickness when you walk into it. Shield brings about a new aspect of play so I’d say it’s worth trying it out and seeing if it’s for you. There are times where the return aspect for Tides of Time doesn’t work properly. I think this is a bug due to hitting part of the world that’s causing the issue.

Wells

Now, let’s talk about Chronomancer wells! The wells themselves and concerning what each of them provide are pretty decent overall. However, some wells have a longer casting time than other wells. The elite well takes 1 second to cast which makes sense (it’s an elite after all) but the 2 damage-oriented wells takes 3/4 to a second to cast. The other 2 utility wells, that are more support-oriented, are 1/4 of a second to cast. It felt weird trying to lay down Well of Calamity sometimes which, if you couldn’t tell be the name, is a damage oriented well. I found myself interrupting the well cast in order to keep up shatter combos and clone upkeep. I really think that the cast time on the damage utility wells need to go down by 1/4 or 1/2 a second. There’s a bug where the wells sometimes don’t visibly appear when I casted them or the outer ring for the well appeared but the actual well doesn’t show up and goes on cooldown.

Continuum Shatter

Next up is the addition of the F5 shatter: Continuum Split & Continuum Shift. This one will take a bit of practice to use in terms of knowing how much time you have in your Split Duration which is dependent on the number of clones you shatter. I can see it as a way to quickly dodge a big hit in a quick Split Duration or to barrage an enemy with spells when you have a good Split Duration going. This shatter definitely has a high skill cap and players will have to experiement a bit in order to get what they want out of it.

The Chronomancer specialization line is pretty solid allowing players to explore more clone and shatter options while also giving you an option to improve your wells.

So to sum things up, I think Chronomancer is in a really good place right now. It feels really polished. There’s just a bit of well cast time clunk and the odd bug here and there.